bad habits

Procrastination is probably my biggest vice. It causes me angst, stress and just makes me damned annoyed with myself. For example, for a few weeks now I've had piles of, well, crap, on the floor in front of my bookshelf to the right of my desk. Some of it was good, like novels a friend had passed on, some was bad, you know, stuff you keep 'just in case' and other stuff was unidentifiably odd. Now it's gone. I sat down with a bag and ditched 90 per cent of it, then went out, put all the paper in the recyling, anything for the salvos in my salvos bag, and pitched the rest. The books went on the actual bookshelf and now it's all blissfully organised and tidy - and now I have no more reason to procrastinate.

I can't bear my habit of saying, "oh, I really must do this," and am now determined to set a time and date and get on with it. If something really bugs me, I'll do it straight away. I won't walk past the overflowing recycling bin grumbling that I have to empty it soon - I'll empty it now. If there's a sticker on the floor for some unknown reason {not totally unknown, I do have a nine-year-old} then rather than stepping over it, I'll bend down, prise it off and walk off with a free space in my mind. I know, simple, but for some reason not something I've done in the past.

Setting a few must-do tasks for each day helps. Keeping the sink clear for example has a flow-on effect that spreads through my kitchen and helps the whole thing look cleaner. Spending 10 minutes before heading to bed tidying the living room means that the mornings go much smoother. Wiping down the bathroom sink and toilet daily means no massive one-a-week effort. Same with writing up the weekly menus {yep, week two and I'm still loving it!}.

Off to start a productive day now, with my lovely tidy study helping motivate me and get me moving!